Grace Kulmacz
Research Mentor(s): Emily Gochis
Mentor Department: Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER)
Authors: Grace Kulmacz, Emily Gochis, Darin Stockdill
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 11
Abstract
This project works with the Sustainability Teacher Fellows program, which supplies participating K-12 teachers within the Saginaw Bay Watershed with professional development, project mentorship, and mini-grants. Educators enrolled in it work closely with members of the Sustainability Fellows program to learn how to bring impactful lessons on sustainability into the school by focusing on topics that result in actionable sustainable solutions and pairing them with local community partners. The data analyzed in this project included educators’ pre- and post-survey data, project plans, and project posters. Three UROP students, including myself, used open coding to analyze the project posters and plans created by participating teachers and used a constant comparative method to improve our findings. Then, I focused on what types of community partners have the most impact in terms of how many students are reached. I found that nonprofits are the type that have the most outreach to students. These findings suggest that the projects made available by non-profit organizations are easier to share with more students, which implies that it would be beneficial to indicate that more teachers pair with these partners in the future.
